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Moving to a New Rental House |
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Written by Tim Schumacher
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Friday, 29 August 2008 22:35 |
Just as we're getting settled in, it's time to pick up and move again. We'll be moving between September 5th and 14th about a mile from our current house to a another rental house. It's directly between the beach and the college - only 2 blocks from the ocean beach to the west and about a half mile from the college to the east. It's got 4 bedrooms and 2 baths (currently we've got 3 and 1). It's a much nicer neighbourhood than our current one. (read the original listing)
In truth, we've known since we first arrived here that the house we were renting was likely to be sold by our landlord (someone on the staff at the college). We could have chosen to stay longer and see how long it takes to sell (which could be months the way the market has turned here) or hope the buyer would let us stay. But the "for sale" sign went up in the yard this week, and we figured we could move anytime if we found the right place.
(Buying a house isn't an option for us since banks here won't offer a mortgage for a term longer than our 3-year temporary visa.)
We started looking at houses about 3 weeks ago. Lanette's been attending viewings of available houses. We actually "applied" for one that we liked but was a half-hour walk from the college - but we weren't selected by the owner.
On Wednesday this week Lanette went to a another viewing. (She's still the only one of us to see the inside!) That same afternoon we applied for the house. On Thursday, the head of the campus canteen where Lanette works realised that someone on our staff lives on the same street. Actually, the house is next door to a couple who both are on our staff at the college. Thursday night we chatted with that couple (two wonderful people). They then talked to the owner who they know well and told what they knew of us. Their input apparently was a factor in convincing the owner to pick our application over someone else's - the news we got on Friday. Clearly, God's doing some coordination on this.
There's another couple from the college that live a just a few doors down the street - Dane's teacher and his wife who is one of our Japanese teachers.
We get possession of the house on Friday, 5th of September. We'll move things bit by bit, and we think we'll finish moving by Sunday, the 14th. More details of the house will be posted here in the coming weeks (after I get to see the inside!).
Click the map below to go to a Google map I set up that you can interact with. On that Google map I included markers highlighting some of the places we frequent around here besides the showing where our new house will be. If you haven't used Google maps before, after going to the linked map, try clicking on the markers for more information, scrolling the left margin for a list of sites marked, click and drag on the map to move around, and click on the plus and minus buttons to zoom in and out.
 The listing of the house read like this:
15 Pollard Way, Warnbro
YOU CAN HEAR THE OCEAN FROM THIS PROPERTY
Outstanding location - lovely 4 x 2 with study home, in a quiet street, just one street away from the beautiful Warnbro Sound beach. Air conditioning, side access with plenty of parking for boat and caravan, double carport to the rear with double lock up garage/workshop.
- Separate Lounge
- Kitchen/Dining
- Study
- Air Conditioning
- Reticulation
- Backyard
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Last Updated on Sunday, 14 September 2008 15:10 |
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Written by Tim Schumacher
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Monday, 23 June 2008 17:37 |
 The two-week winter holiday begins on the 5th of July, and we've been slow to figure out what we're doing. It seems like everyone here takes the holiday seriously and make plans to get away. They tend to go north in winter with the preferred destination being between Carnarvon-Coral-Bay-Exmouth (800 miles; 16 hours of driving) where they dive on the Ningaloo Reef.
We're not ready to take on 16 hours of outback driving, so we've been looking for other options that might give us some of the flavour of the outback. And... I think we're going to get a serious taste of outback with what we've arranged.
We're booking two nights on an outback sheep station, staying in "shearer's quarters". Wogarno Station is a family-run 152,000 acre working sheep station. For comparison, that would be three-fifths the size of Carver County in Minnesota, or about 400 times larger than the Gruben farm in Rochelle. There are some terrific rock formations and Aboriginal cave paintings that we'll be able to hike to while there.
Wogarno is about 40 km south of Mt. Magnet, an historic gold mining town. The directions to Wogarno Station from the south as we'll be approaching it say to reset your car's tripmeter at the town of Payne's Find and then when it says "105 km", turn left. (There's nothing in between for that 105 km!)
Click on the map at right to interact with it in Google Maps. Or download this file and open it in Google Earth.
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Last Updated on Monday, 23 June 2008 19:59 |
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Written by Tim Schumacher
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Monday, 02 June 2008 17:58 |
We celebrated Foundation Day today (Monday) with a day off from school. We headed to the beach to romp around in the sand and the water. It's been a bit rainy in the last week, so today's beautiful sunshine and 21°C (70°F) weather was lovely to enjoy. The forecast for the upcoming week here is a top of 22-25°C and sunny everyday through Sunday.
Foundation Day is only a Western Australian holiday. It commemorates the founding of the Swan River Colony (Perth) in 1829. We have the day off from school and many businesses were closed, but otherwise we didn't notice much else being done to celebrate.
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Written by Tim Schumacher
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Tuesday, 20 May 2008 16:24 |
 No, we have not seen one yet. This photo is as close as we've come to spotting one. Everyone says there's plenty of them around here. You've got to find them at the right place and time. Yesterday Lanette got a tip on which road to head out on at dusk to find the kangaroos. We really haven't made an effort to look for them. The surf and beach are much more reliable sources of entertainment so far.
We are still waiting for internet access at home. (Now we have internet!) We've got bunches of emails that we haven't had a chance to reply to... but we'll get to it when we can. Much more that we also want to post here... we'll get to it.
The boys are into their first week at school. I'll upload some photos of that soon, along with more beach scenes.
We picked up our new used car yesterday in Perth - a Hyundai Trajet. I'll try to post some photos soon.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 27 May 2008 21:44 |
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Written by Tim Schumacher
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Sunday, 11 May 2008 13:39 |
 Apologies for being slow with news on the website and in replying to emails. We're still waiting for an internet connection at home. Telstra (phone company) assigned us a landline phone number which we used for a couple of days until Telstra decided to assign the same number to someone else. Until that's sorted out this week we can't get internet set up. We're very anxious to have this done so we can get caught up on a long list of overdue emails and start Skyping (internet phone).
On the left is a photo of the boys at the beach on Warnbro Sound. This is the beach that's directly west of our house about 0.7 miles. We've been there a few times now, and they walked there once from the house with Lanette.
Lanette and I finally had our visas approved this week. Lanette will take the boys into downtown Perth (the “CBD” or Central Business District as they refer to the downtowns here) on Monday for their visa-required medical exams. Once those are processed, the boys will be able to attend school. In the meantime, Lanette and the boys have been spending their days getting business done (banking, licensing, etc.), doing tons of shopping, and hitting the beaches. Peter, Karl, and Dane are loving the beach scene, but it's Autumn here so it's only warm enough to go knee-deep into the water and not much more at the very empty beaches.
With our visas approved, our shipping container was finally released to start the customs clearing process which may take 10 to 20 business days. So the home furnishings are a bit sparse though some people from the college brought in beds, a dining table and chairs, a few lounge chairs from the college's staff room, television, refrigerator, and some basic kitchen items.
After borrowing a staff member's car for about 10 days, we moved on to a rental car. Yesterday we made our first trip into the big city of Perth (45 minute drive) to shop for a car. We put money down on a used Hyundai Trajet (like a mini-van), and will pick it up when we figure out the financing. Cars don't rust here, so the used ones hold their value (and their bodies) much longer than we're used to in Minnesota. We're seeing tons of 20-year old little Ford Festivas running around here. (Some might remember my red '87 Festiva). We also made a stop at the new IKEA in Perth and at King's Park for scenic views of the city.
Check the website for a few new sets of photos in the Photo Gallery from some of our excursions to the beaches and into Perth. Also, see Peter's Blog where he's drawn a floorplan of the house were renting. And we've got more stuff we all want to post, but it may have to wait until we get the internet connection at the house.
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